Weathering the Storm
by stormsangel
Summary: Living through the storms of life were hard for Kagome, but with a little help from a few key players, can she find happiness, maybe love and save them from their pain too?


**Prologue**

My name is Kagome; I'm a 19 year old girl from a broken home. My father fled the scene when I was about 4 years old, with his hot new girlfriend, leaving Mom, Sota and myself to take care of each other. But things at home got hard for Mom and she eventually got bitter, she continually cursed my father for leaving her with two young brats to deal with. Lucky for my older brother Sota, he didn't look a thing like my father, where as I was my father's splitting image; I got to take the brute force of all her anger. Mom never said what she really meant in public for which I was lucky, but when we were in the confines of our own house, the things she said could easily make a young girl like myself shoulder all the blame.

Now, my mother always wanted to appear as a good mother to everyone, so me and Sota got to do many activities and she worked hard to provide things for us. Sota always got more from Mom than I did, including attention. I remember one time when my mother went to one of Sota's soccer games and forgot that I was still in the school's daycare. She didn't even remember until I called my neighbor to pick me up and she found me sitting on the porch waiting for her and Sota to return; she never apologized to me for that.

I do remember when I found my sanctuary I was about 11 and Sango and I, who had been my best friend since before I could remember, decided that we wanted to try horseback riding. Well, we talked her father in to agreeing and to talking my mother in to letting me too, but he only agreed to do that because he wouldn't be able to take us and would need my mother to drive us. My mother agreed and as soon as I got on to the first horse I just knew this was where I wanted to be. I could forget everything that went wrong in my life. Sango eventually started getting bored with riding and I knew I had to find a way to continue. Lucky for me, my trainer Shori had just fired her working student and was having a hard time getting us lesson students on in time. So I begged Sango to continue for a few more weeks, which she agreed to do just for me because she knew that I needed to continue. I remember what she said when I begged her to do that for me.

--

"Please, please, PLEASSSSEEEE Sango, we will get my mom to drive us early and I'll have Shori teach me how to tack the horses and then my mom won't have to pay for lessons and she can't make me stop because then people will ask me why I quit and she knows I'll tell them that she made me and then people will question why she did that if I was so clearly happy riding horses. You know how she hates when I tell people the truth and she will have no reason to make me stop if I and working to pay for my lessons. Pleassssee I need this." I begged her. She sighed. I continued

"I promise just a few more weeks, just until I get to be the working student, I just know Shori will ask me, once I learn how to tack a horse." She sighed again and I gave my best puppy dog eyes and she caved.

"Fine," she huffed "but just so you know I'm only doing this because I know how much you love it, and you're actually happy there." I squealed and jumped on her.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you. I LOVE YOU!" I screamed and squealed over and over again in her ear. She giggled and hugged me back."Just stay happy, please" she asked me. I was confused as to why she asked me that but agreed that I would.

--

So sure enough, we convinced my mom to drive us earlier and earlier every week, and I picked up on tacking horses quickly. Shori asked me to be her working student three weeks after I begged Sango to continue. Sango quit riding just two weeks after I got the job.

I worked hard at the barn, even working on days that the other working students couldn't be there. I quickly found that people at that barn mostly ignored me; I mean after all, they were lucky enough to own a horse, while I was barely able to continue riding. I was just a working student, someone that was rarely noticed. That was how I learn a lot of what I know now. Whenever something went wrong and I wasn't busy tacking horses, I went over and watched and learned.

Then one day, I got to the barn early enough to help bring horses in and one of the lesson horses came in from the field with a big scrape down his leg. Before Shori or the barn manager, Ginta, could even make it to the back aisle with the feeding cart, I already had assessed his wound and cleaned it, telling Shori it was no big deal, if she would just give me some stuff to put on it and keep it clean I would have him up and running for lessons in 20 minutes, along with tacking the other horses.

They were so impressed I got the job as barn help, and started working the weekends at the barn, feeding breakfast, letting horses out, bringing them back in and feeding lunch. That was the last of my good luck for a while.

When I turned 14 things with me and Mom took a turn for the worst. We fought all time. She even went so far as blaming my father leaving us on me. Our arguments sent me into a crippling depression; I woke up, went to school, came home slept until it was time to go to the barn, came home from the barn and slept till morning. I couldn't deal with the things she said to me. I almost killed myself too, but Sango stopped and even though she doesn't realize that she saved me with that phone call, she did.

--

My phone was ringing for the third time and my mom was still threatening to take it away, and yelling about my blubbering through my locked door.

"Kagome, Stop crying. You're being stupid. Your attitude is really starting to piss me off too and if it doesn't stop I'm going to take away that phone so you can't get a hold of all those nasty friends of yours who are making you a horrible daughter." She yelled

"Just go away. You're not taking my phone. Leave me ALONE!! And I'm not crying" I yelled brokenly back. Although that was a lie because I was sobbing, she finally walked away from my door with a resounding 'bitch'. My phone rang again and I decided to answer, with the justification that I wanted to talk to my best friend one last time before I left the earth for good.

"Hello?" I sniffed

"KAGOME!! Finally! I only called like 4 times. You said you would be home today and that you wanted to talk, but when I call you don't answer. What's that about?"

"Sorry, I got in a fight with my mom again."

"Awe, again? I'm sorry. But what did you wanna talk about, because I have news for you too." She chirped excitedly

"Not too much" I sighed dejectedly as I twirled the bottle of pills that would soon end my life around in my hand. "How 'bout your news first, I'm not really in the mood to talk."

"Okay, but only if your sure you're not in the mood to talk"

"Oh, I'm sure"

"Okay, well guess what happened yesterday?"

"What?" I questioned halfheartedly as I heard her father in the background calling her to dinner.

"Oh man, I got to go. Dad's calling me for dinner. But promise me that you'll be in school tomorrow so I can tell you."

"Sango, you know I'll be there" I lied

"Kagome, just promise me. I mean, I know you'll be there but I know you can't break your promises and that way you can't find a way to avoid me so I don't ask you about that fight you just had with your mother. And don't think that I'll forget either." She said quickly. I sighed.

"Fine." I huffed. "I promise. I will be in school tomorrow" I clutched the pills tighter.

"Good. See you tomorrow"

"Yeah, see ya" she paused before hanging up and whispered.

"You know it will all be okay, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. See ya" I said tossing the pills to my feet. I was absolutely disgusted with myself. I couldn't even kill myself without feeling guilty.

--

I cried that night. I cried for the things that had happened in my life, I cried for the people who may actually care about me but mostly I cried because I was failing at another thing. I cried myself to sleep and never cried again after that.

Things continued that way with me and mom for a long while and my depression continued to worsen. However, things changed about the week before I turned sixteen. A horribly ugly, yet surprising beautiful paint horse came into the barn. She was emaciated; about 300 pounds underweight, with horrible lash marks covering her hindquarters and the tips of her ears were missing. She had beautiful big blue eyes that held so much pain that I couldn't look at her without remembering my own. I didn't like her for that reason.

The night that she came to our barn was the night that turn my life my upside down. I couldn't sleep because my thoughts kept running back to that paint. So I decided that I would go downstairs and watch some T.V. to get my mind off her. I had been sitting on the floor watching T.V. for about an hour before Sota walked in the door from a night out with his friends. It was nearing one in the morning and he knew if he went and watched his television in his room that Mom would wake up and yell at him and being mister sensitive he couldn't handle that. He swooped over when I wasn't paying attention and grabbed the remote from my hands. I gasped and yelled at him quietly to give it back. He wouldn't and we continued to argue over the remote and I was able to sneakily get it back.

Once I had the remote in my hand. I sat back down smugly and threw a 'ha ha' over my shoulder. Sometime during our little spat we must have awoken our mother who came storming over and yelled at us. I sputtered trying to explain what had happened and how it wasn't my fault, while Sota just sat quietly watching wide-eyed.

She asked me if I wanted to know what a fight was really like before she came flying at me, leaving me with just enough time to curl in to a slight ball. She kicked me in the back, neck and head about four times before she seemed to come to her senses and turned around and headed back to her room without another glance at us. Sota scrambled to his room after she slammed her door shut and left me alone to agonize over the pain that her foot had inflicted on my body.

The next week Shori had me ride the paint, which ended up throwing me in a jump because of her insecurities about what I was asking her to do, and in the moment I connected with the ground I fell in love her. Later me and Shori joked about me actually getting a horse of my own. Well, Shori actually thought that I was ready for one, but I knew I would never be able to have one. As we were talking my mom came through the door to pick me up for once instead of Sota, and heard our discussion. She questioned Shori about why she thought I was ready for a horse, and if Shori had any horse in mind. I was surprised, to say the least, that she was even asking Shori about getting me a horse, but when Shori suggested the paint and my mom agreed to buy her for me, I about fainted.

Missy- the paint, _my_ paint- was my mom's way of ridding herself of guilt for actually leaving a physical bruise on my body. Missy was my hush money; she was the first part of my miracle. The second part, well, I met him about three weeks later. They saved me, Missy and InuYasha saved me from my pain and I helped them with their own.

**Okay, tell if you like it or not. If I should continue or not. Review, review, review. **

**Constructive critics welcome! But please don't be mean, just to be mean, because I am not a writer, therefore not usually good at it. **


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